


Who Needs Eyesight?

by Es_Aitch



Series: Twelfth Doctor One Shots Series 10 [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 13:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11082555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: How “Pyramid at the End of the World” should have gone.  Spoilers for that Episode





	Who Needs Eyesight?

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn’t abide the level of shear stupidity/bad planning that was this episode, so in a departure for me, you get this ‘fix-it.’
> 
> * * *

Erica had just told the Doctor that she had wanted to be a bus driver when she was little. The Doctor smirked slightly when she gave the reason being that the bus drivers waved at each other. The human race, that’s why he did what he could to save them time and again.

He put the wire ends into the soil and then went to set the clock. Except. He couldn’t see it. Well, he could see the outline and where the display should be, but he couldn’t see any of the information the display was showing. Erica was watching him on the camera and turned the intercom on. “What’s taking you so long?”

Bill heard that and piped in. “Doctor? What’s happening?”

“Slight hiccup, but I’m working on it.”

Erica and Bill asked the same question at the same time. “What’s the problem?”

“I… can’t set the timer.”

Bill was the only one to answer this time, since Erica was starting to piece the information together as she watched him on the screen. “What do you mean? I don’t understand. Why can’t you see it?”

“I’m blind, Bill. I’m sorry. I’m blind.”

“What do you mean blind? Did something happen?”

Erica covered her mouth. She couldn’t tell him yet that his problem just got more complex. The Doctor sighed. “I lied. To you. To everyone. I’ve been blind since Chasm Forge. I didn't get my sight back. I've been lying to you. There's a digital display, and I can't see it, so I don’t have a way to set the bomb.”

It was time for Erica to chime in. “I can’t help, the cameras are too far away. There’s another problem.” She paused. “I can’t open the door. It’s a security setting, so I can’t get back in there.”

The clock on Bill’s phone was slowly ticking closer and closer to midnight. But she had an idea. Something she had been too slow and stupid to realise when they had been on that ship with the human colonists. “Doctor, use your phone. You have the commands memorised, yeah? You can take a picture of the device and send it to me and I can tell you what to press.”

The Doctor smirked. “Oh, you are good.”

The Doctor took out his phone and was about to take a picture when Erica interrupted. “Better idea, stream it to her. That way she can help you real-time.”

The Doctor was grinning now. “I think between the three of us, we just might be able to save humanity.”

The Doctor started to show the live-stream from his phone to Bill’s. Bill looked at the images. “Okay, this is pretty simple. On the lower left of the display is a big ‘M’, to the right of that is a big ‘S’, and last is a small ‘s slash s’. What does that mean? I get minutes and seconds.”

“Start and stop.” The Doctor was already setting the timer. “One minute, thirty, correct?”

Bill checked her screen. “Yes, you got that.”

The Doctor hovered his finger over where Bill had described the letters to him. “Is it going?”

“Yes, it’s counting down.”

“Bill, get the hell out of that pyramid.”

With that order Bill’s phone showed that her doomsday clock was running backwards. They had done it! She took off running. A few moments later she heard the Doctor’s voice.

“Bill, I’m going to need you again.”

“Why? What now?”

“Combination lock. I can’t see the number. I can feel where each number would be different but I need to set it to 3-6-1-4.”

“Show me.”

In a moment, her display showed the lock.

“It’s displaying 9-2-3-4. Zero is above the nine. So if you move that one down four numbers, the second one down four numbers, and the third one up two it should be the right combination.”

The Doctor held the camera and Bill watched anxiously as he moved the numbers into the right positions. She started to run out of the pyramid once she was sure the Doctor was safe.

The Doctor left his camera rolling and Bill saw the explosion just as she ran her way out of the pyramid. She didn’t stop running until she was with the UN cars, though. Before she ended her call with the Doctor, she spoke. “We _are_ going to talk about this, you’re not off the hook here.”

Erica just stared at the Doctor for a long minute in silence and then she realised the Doctor couldn’t see her. “It’s your shades, right? They let you see enough to get by.”

Now that the world was saved, the Doctor was starting to calm down. He nodded once, growing subdued, and this wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. But Erica was brilliant and she wasn’t going to leave him like that. “What about your other friend? The one with the red coat?”

The Doctor gasped. “Nardole.”

He ran to where he could sense the TARDIS had parked herself. Erica followed. The Doctor didn’t bother trying to prepare her or even tell her not to enter. Of course she followed him. He entered. “Nardole?”

It didn’t take long to come to the other side of the console and find the other man. His sonic told him Nardole’s vitals. They were weak. The human lungs were turning to ‘gunk’. “He’s still alive but fading fast. I need help getting him to the medical bay. I think I have a set of mechanical lungs somewhere. They’ll work temporarily until I can get another set.”

Erica barely heard a word, since she was taken in by what she was seeing. “So it’s a space ship in disguise.”

“Time and Space ship. Yes. Look, we can talk about that later, I need your help. Can you focus please? I need to save my friend here.”

Erica immediately went into scientist mode. “Right. What do you need me to do.”

“Go to the medbay. Through the doors at the bottom of those stairs. The TARDIS will light your way. Get a cot. Bring it here.”

“What about the stairs?”

“Don’t worry about those, just go, please.”

Erica didn’t wait a second longer. She took off. She found the cot and when she approached it, it lowered enough for her to be able to push it along. When she got to the stairs, she realised she didn’t have to do anything. The stairs turned into a ramp.

“Oh that’s brilliant. I need one of those in my house.”

She pushed the cot next to Nardole and the Doctor buzzed his sonic shades at it. It lowered the rest of the way.

“Now, help me get him on it.”

She nodded and no longer questioned anything about this place. If the Doctor said they could move the round-ish man, they could do it.

Once they were in the medbay, the Doctor frantically searched for the mechanical lungs he had referred to earlier. “While I’m getting them, could you unbutton his shirt and get it out of the way?”

“Sure, but what about sanitation?”

“TARDIS will take care of that…” he pulled open a drawer, “Perfect! Got them. A little small for him, but they’ll work for now.”

He came back to Nardole and placed the lungs on top of the patient’s chest. “Right, okay, we can go and just let the TARDIS do her thing?”

Erica was shocked. “What? Just like that? They automatic or something?”

The Doctor nodded. “Or something. Come on.”

He escorted them out of the room and led them back to the console room. He looked around and back at her. “You have questions. By the way, not answering any of them.” He hedged a bit. “Unless, you want to come with.”

Erica looked around her. “I’d love to, but…”

The Doctor smiled at her ‘but’. “You’re too smart to.”

She shrugged and then remembered he couldn’t see it. “That was lower on the list than you probably think. There’s a heck of a mess to clean up in the lab. And they’re going to need someone to head it up.”

The Doctor smiled. “And new safety protocols to put in place. I’m President of the World, I could put in a recommendation, not that you’d need it. You’re brilliant.”

Erica smiled. “Tell you what, if they’re idiots and ignore me, I’ll take you up on that offer.”

The Doctor smiled again. “Seriously, you ever want to join me, I’ll make room.”

She laughed. “I don’t think room is the issue. This place is enormous.” She giggled again. “But I know what you mean. Thank you, Doctor. Not just for saving the planet, but letting me be a part of it.”

“You did that all on your own.”

She nodded. “I should probably go, and you need to go see your friend. Bill?”

“That’s… not something I’m looking forward to.”

Erica approached the Doctor. “I don’t blame you. Something tells me you were keeping it from her to try to keep her safe. Just… be honest with her. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“I might have to check in on you once in awhile, Erica.”

“I think I’d like it if you did.”

With that, she exited the TARDIS. Shortly after that, the TARDIS dematerialised and the Doctor returned to Turmezistan. He exited the TARDIS and was immediately confronted with Bill.

Bill was stood with her arms crossed over her chest, but realised that would do no good since the Doctor probably couldn’t see her. So instead when he came out of the TARDIS, she hugged him. And didn’t let go, for an extended amount of time. Even when the Doctor started to wiggle a little, she still held fast to him. She only let him go when the roar of engines sounded and the ship disguised as a pyramid took off.

After the ship left orbit, the Doctor took a step away from Bill and pulled a face that clearly indicated that he thought she was going to slap him.

“I’m not going to slap you. I think making you endure that hug and making you explain things to me is enough punishment.”

The Doctor was about to argue and realised that he couldn’t. She was right. He gestured to the bunker. May as well get this over with.

Once they were seated Bill took a big breath. “I get it. You want to protect me. You’ve always wanted to. But I’ve told you, I don’t want you to.”

“Bill…” He sighed her name. He wanted her to stop and stop now. Of course, she pressed.

“No, Doctor. You’re going to sit there and listen for one minute. You want to keep me safe. I _do_ understand that. The things you do, everything we encounter, it’s always dangerous and you do your best to ensure I get home again. So, you think others shouldn’t worry about you. But this time? That worry… It nearly got the world destroyed. I was ready to make the deal because I wasn’t sure if we would be able to find a way or not.”

That surprised the Doctor. It was one thing for Nardole to talk about Missy in the vault, or really any number of his enemies learning of his weakness. But not Bill. No, she went to show that in his attempts to protect her, he nearly destroyed the one thing he always sought to protect. He slumped a little in his chair and nodded that he was actually listening now and that she should continue.

She nodded and then took a breath. “You’ve hid it well enough. So even if you can’t see, you know about your surroundings. It’s your sonic, isn’t it? Somehow the sonic gives you some sense of sight.”

The Doctor nodded. “Outlines mostly, like computer games from the early 1980s, well before you were born.”

She nodded. “Okay. Good. You can see enough that I don’t have to worry about you falling off a cliff or something.”

The Doctor shrugged. “No. If that’s going to happen, it’s usually because I’m chasing something or something else pushes me off.”

“Sarcasm isn’t going to help this time, Doctor. The point is: you don’t need that much help. So, tell me what you do need help with?”

The Doctor shifted in his seat uncomfortably. After all, he wasn’t good with asking for help. “I can’t see people. I get readouts of their vitals: heart rate, how tall they are, weight, age, that sort of thing. But I can’t see their outlines. Or like the clock.” He gestured to it. “I can see the hands, because they’re mechanical, but I can’t see the numbers.”

Bill nodded. “So the telly. You can see that it’s there, but you can’t see what it’s displaying.”

He nodded.

“I can work with that. Anything else?”

“Books and paper. I can see the object, but I can’t read what’s written on it.”

Bill nodded. “Makes sense. How do I help?”

The Doctor looked confused. “I’m sorry?”

Bill leaned in. “Thought it was your eyes that were the problem, not your ears. How. Do. I. Help?”

He was about to argue that he didn’t need help, but given what just happened, he knew he would never be able to convince her of that. He shrugged. “You were a big help today, so something like that. Nardole’s been helping me a lot as well, as you probably can figure out if you think about it.”

She nodded. “Go on.”

“Most importantly, don’t worry about me. Around me, the dangers we face, people should worry about themselves.”

She sat thinking about that for a few moments. “Tell you what. I promise to not worry about you, as long as you promise me to ask for my help if you need it. And preferably before the last second.”

“I’m not good at asking for help.”

“I’ve noticed.”

The Doctor pursed his lips. “I can’t promise how good I’ll be at it, but I promise to try.”

“It’s a good start.”

He nodded and took a sighed slightly. “Bill… Thank you.”

He was thanking her for so many things. Not just the part she played in saving the planet, but also in not hitting him and accepting what he could promise, even if it wasn’t quite what she wanted. She reached out her hand and rested it on top of his. “You’re welcome, Doctor.  Now, about that extra presidential plane…”


End file.
